By Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
P11 * That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive -- all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.
P13 * Bath is a glorious town: Lovely crescents of white, upstanding houses instead of London’s black, gloomy buildings or -- worse still -- piles of rubble that were once buildings. It is bliss to breathe in clean, fresh air with no coal smoke and no dust. The weather is cold, but it isn’t London’s dank chill. Even the people on the street look different -- upstanding, like their houses, not grey and hunched like Londoners.
P33 * The old adage -- humor is the best way to make the unbearable bearable -- may be true.
P41 * Now that I think about it, maybe he is a werewolf. I can picture him lunging over the moors in hot pursuit of his prey, and I’m certain that he wouldn’t think twice about eating an innocent bystander. I’ll watch him closely at the next full moon. He’s asked me to go dancing tomorrow -- perhaps I should wear a high collar. Oh, that’s vampires, isn’t it?
P103 * I chose to read about the correct way to roast a suckling pig. Butter its little body, I said. Let the juices run down and cause the fire to sizzle. The way I read it you could smell the pig roasting, hear its flesh crackle. I spoke of my five-layer cakes -- using a dozen eggs -- my spun-sugar sweets, chocolate-rum balls, sponge cakes with pots of cream. Cakes made with good white flour -- not that cracked grain and bird-seed stuff we were using at the time.
P104 * My dear Juliet, I, too, have felt that the war goes on and on. When my son, Ian, died at El alamein -- side by side with Eli’s father, John -- visitors offering their condolences, thinking to comfort me, said” Live goes on.” What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn’t. It’s death that goes on; Ian is dead now and will be dead tomorrow and next year and forever. There’s no end to that. But perhaps there will be an end to the sorrow of it. Sorrow has rushed over the world like the waters of the Deluge, and it will take time to recede. But already, there are small islands of -- hope? Happiness? Something like them, at any rate. I like the picture of you standing upon your chair to catch a glimpse of the sun, averting your eyes from the mounds of rubble.
P138 * Excuse my unburdening myself. My worries travel about my head on their well-worn path, and it is a relief to put them on paper. I will turn to more cheerful subjects -- such as last evening’s meeting of the Society.
P139 * There is no more beautiful approach to Guernsey than the one by sea -- either with the sun going down, or with gold-tipped, black storm clouds, or the Island just emerging through the mist. This is the way I first saw Guernsey, as a new bride.
P142 * I don’t much care for people -- never have, never will. I got my reasons. I never met a man half so true as a dog. Treat a dog right and he’ll treat you right -- he’ll keep you company, be your friend, never ask you no questions. Cats is different, but I never held that against them.
from a animal lover to Juliet
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